11/21/2012

LIST OF CUBA INVESTMENTS

Tourism in Cuba is the 1 area of investment for international hotel & Resort companies that want a future presence into the very profitable Cuban tourism industry. Melia Hotel & Resorts, Accor and Publicly traded Sherritt International are the leaders in this hot investment sector of tourism in Cuba. Foreign involvement in Cuban tourism has many smaller travel agencies and tour representatives who have offices in Cuba as well as most major tourism based travel vacation airlines that offer flights to Varadero, Santiago, Cayo Coco & Havana Cuba.

The Cuban tourism ministry is keen to attract further foreign investment for various hotel developments in order to prepare for the eventual changing of the US travel ban which will be lifted in the next year. The lifting of the American Travel Embargo against Cuba would generate millions of American tourist. Cuban tourism authorities are seeking investment from International hotel & resort developers that want to build hotels outside of Havana and Varadero beach.

Cuba keeps changing the rules in the right direction as many new apartment buildings were opened to foreign investment and ownership in 1995. There are two primary JV's involved in commercial real estate. These are Inmobiliaria Monte Baretto S. A. and Inmobiliaria Aurea S. A. , both with international investors and foreign shareholders, which have developed the Miramar world Trade centre and La Lonja del Comercio for retail and commercial rental of office space.

Currently real estate is limited to Cubans but this could change very soon as Cuba continues to open the real estate investment opportunities to foreigners. Opportunities in the residential market have been pursued by Canadian Publicly traded company Lesiure Canada, one of the shareholders in the largest commercial real estate project (Monte Baretto)

Sherritt International is the main investor in this sector with over $900 Million in investment in Cuba. Cuba is seeking investment in new project for energy alternatives and will give very quick replies to foreign investors that have good ides, New Technology and available financing. Oil and gas service companies have gone bust but they continue to present their services in oil & gas exploration.

Sugar and fruit are the main foreign investors with deep investments in citrus fruits with the largest Investor being an Israeli group which has recently reduced its interest. Ethanol & Biomass energy conversion plants is another priority for the Cuban government with discussions between Brazil and Venezuela.

Cuban President, Raul Castro, has allowed European and Canadian banks in Cuba for many decades participating in trade and financial deals since the early 1990’s. Even in Travel & health Insurance, Heath Lambert and Lloyds of England have been the leader in Cuban Insurance and re–insurance of certain higher Cuban insurance risks such as project and infrastructural debt financing which is a strategic area for attracting foreign investment. Cuban bank President under Castro will facilitate meetings from interested investment groups.

The list of Cuban investment funds and other investment vehicles is short. Currently investing in Cuban fixed income debt as well as equity investments is the only possibility that international investment Funds have in Cuba investments. The only investment companies that are investing in Cuba are Leisure Canada, Ceiba Finance and Coral Capital (UK registered) which has their two top executives in Jail for corruption charges. European investments has also been reported by a very small German fund called Kuba Investments.

New Cuba investment funds are encouraged to establish good relationships and a physical presence in Cuba. Many interesting projects at different stages of development are seeking financing and capital investments long as the investment company has passed the approval process with the Cuban authorities.

This is an area where Cuba really can make a difference since Fidel Castor invested over $300 Million to create a world class bio-technology research center on this Cuban island paradise. York Medical and smith Kline and several other biotech firms have invested large sums of money and signed research agreements to develop certain drugs with Cuban biotech entities called CIMAB S. A. and CIGB S.A. Cuba has also several agreements to manufacture international vaccine treatments with Iran, Brazil, China and most recently with India’s Biocon Bio-pharmaceuticals Ltd.

Cuban President Raul Castro has made this sector a top priority area and has received a great deal of attention since the 1980’s. Biotechnology has the most potential in investment risk returns and is much open to new investors although the investment model developed by the Cuban financial and investment ministry has open to international pharmaceutical companies.

Cuba has over 200,000 advanced computer technology programmers in every sector of technology and software development. Technology in Cuba has been compared to silicon island of the Latin world. Many high tech companies will be looking to invest in Cuba as soon as the American embargo is lifted. Presently few foreign companies have elected to invest in this sector however it is agreed that Computer & technology in Cuba will be a huge growth industry in the near future as Cuba continues to develop thousands of Computer PhD's that will be the seeds to the future advancement of this sector of the Cuban investment economy.